GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 334696
Suggestion for alternative handling of focus-stealing
Last modified: 2006-03-15 22:35:13 UTC
Please describe the problem: I have been wondering why Metacity prevents focus-stealing when it's not clear that the user is even trying to type. I would propose an alternative set of heuristics as to when focus-stealing should be allowed, and the new window that just opened should be brought to the top: (1) when the user has not pressed any keys since the last mouse click (e.g. in the event of clicking on a launcher, or other button that opened a dialog) (2) when the user has not pressed any keys in a certain period of time (e.g. 5 seconds). Really the rationale I've seen before for the focus-stealing changes that got a lot of people upset was to prevent keyboard input from going into the wrong window. (Perhaps there are other reasons I don't know about.) But what about if the user is not even using the keyboard? You have to admit that sometimes it's really annoying to have windows not come to the top that you obviously want at the top -- it increases the number of mouse moves and clicks you need to get your work done. Steps to reproduce: Actual results: Expected results: Does this happen every time? Other information:
If it prevents focus stealing when it's not clear that the user is even trying to type (with the exception of launch from terminals), then it's a bug, not a design choice. What you suggest _is_ what it's basically what it's supposed to do. There are bugs in various apps and libs and whatnot, but we already have bug 149028 for the general it's-not-all-done-yet thing. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 149028 ***